Being a sole breadwinner is not easy. Nevertheless, I tried my best to make my family happy. My kids love swimming so I upgraded to a condo. Luckily I managed to sell my 5 room exec flat at a good price last year and using the sales proceeds of the flat and plus CPF savings, I managed to pay the condo in full. My family likes to be ferried around so I got a new Korean car recently, paid in full using my cash savings. I'm now in my mid forties, earning a humble $130k pa. Luckily I've been thrifty and hence able to be debt free.

LOL, so it's all luck to you. Very dangerous to be depending on luck, as one day your luck could run out.

How much was your condo? And your car? You didn't even take loan for your car? I thought if you take their loan, the car dealer would give some discount to the car price. The discount in most cases is more than the loan interest, so it is worthwhile to take the car loan.

As you are only in your 40s, you should actually consider taking a home loan. Home loans give the lowest interest rates around, especially for first home owners. You can use the money for other investment or even just leave it in your CPF.

In our case, when we bought our investment property we only paid 30% even though we could pay in full. The loan interest rate is 1%. We leave half of the money ($500k) in our CPF to earn 2.5% and the other half in stocks to earn dividends of 4.5%.

41, $60k pa
Wife, 40, $65k pa
4 room BTO flat
9 year old car

Will be you scrapping your car to buy a new one? If so, don't be like us. Because people say the COE price will drop, so we waited till our old COE has 3 months left, then the COE price didn't drop.

We ended up having to scrap our car without a new one! We are still waiting for our new car at a high COE. It is really inconvenient for us without a car.

Yes, we are getting a new car now. COE prices likely to go up as many people are changing cars. We are buying now to avoid the crowd later. Many of my friends and colleagues are changing cars too as their COEs are ending soon too. Many are 8 - 9 years old cars. They don't want to wait for last minute to buy.

new car
 

For us, we also wanted few years for COE to drop but it didn't. Now my car is coming to few months to scrap. Luckily I manage to bid $70k for my new car.. Looks like COE is heading north back to $80k and beyond as more buyers enter the market as their car scrap just like me....Huat ah.

We are thinking of getting a Cat A Korean car. Cat A COE is only $63k. Cat A Korean cars are good value for money. Korean cars today have very nice, sporty designs and are of good quality as they are made in Korea which is known for their high quality, high tech manufacturing.

COE prices will go higher for sure. 10 years ago, COE were at $20k. Salaries ten years ago is so much lower than now, so COE prices should also be higher. $60k COE today is actually cheap considering inflation over the past 10 years. $100k COE will the new normal.

Luckily I bid $70k for my CatB.. If it goes back up $100k then it's good news for me!

Yes. Agree $60k is cheap. I just bid $72k for my new Lexus. Cheap!

Thanks for the advice. We just booked this weekend as we cannot afford to go without car as we don't think COE will drop with so many cars deregistering. The demand will outstrip supply.